Page 117 of Wicked Rivals

With my eyes closed, I prayed first to my grandmother. Mynonnahad saved me from a devastating marriage that would have ended with my death in less than a year.

A long and happy life had never been in the cards for me, not until she risked her own life to set me on a path I might survive. She helped me escape the fate of my father’s legacy.

Next, I prayed to the grandmother who had found me, taken me in, and shown me how to adapt to a new life, a free life. My adoptivenonnataught me what it meant to live, to choose, how to say “no” to those bigger than me, stronger than me, in ways that would be heard.

She taught me how to do things I didn’t know I had in me.

Before those women passed, they had helped me through the hardest times in my life, holding me up, making sure I never lost my footing. They taught me how to be strong in ways only a woman understood, how to endure things that might break even the strongest of men.

Then, while continuing to take deep breaths, in through the nose, out slowly through the mouth, I prayed to the Virgin Mother. I didn't ask her to help me or save me. I’d asked my grandmothers for that protection. Of the Virgin, I had a much more important request.

To her, I prayed for the safety and protection of my son, not only from his deranged teacher, but also from the horrors of his father's life.

I couldn’t bear to think of Enzo being raised by his father and ending up in the mafia. I couldn’t let that happen. Whether Stefano claimed him as an heir or kept him close as a soldier, the result would be the same for my son, and I couldn’t let it be.

But I knew.

I knew all the effort I’d made to keep him away from that life had been for nothing. I had failed. I knew the effort I’d made for so long to keep him away from that life had been for nothing. I had failed. The moment Enzo and Stefano laid eyes on each other, my son's fate had been sealed.

Still, I prayed to the Virgin anyway.

I begged for my son’s life to be different.

Let him live. Let him be a good man.Let him marry for love. Let him father children he adores. Let him have a long life. A full life. Let him die an old man surrounded by warmth and a loving family. Make sure my son always knows how much I love him.

Oh god, my head spun faster and faster.

My stomach twisted, and bile hit my throat.

I prayed harder.

No, no, no…

Sharp pains struck my temples, and the throbbing in my arm and shoulder intensified.

But damn it, I refused to stop praying, ignoring the pain, the sickness, the fear while pleading for my son’s life.

A cold sweat soaked my neck, my back, all of me. My body trembled violently. I was so cold. Pins and needles stabbed at my hands and my feet.

The car slowed, jostled me around over two or three considerable potholes, then rolled to a full stop.

All the energy had left my body. I couldn’t lift my head.

How was I supposed to fight back now?

The trunk opened, and bright light filtered in, blinding me. I tried to block it with my hand and get my vision into focus, but everything remained blurry. My eyelids weighed so much.

“Get up. I must get you ready,” Luka said.

“Get me ready for what?”

The sound of my voice alarmed me. The sluggishness, the hollow tone, the incoherently strung together words.

“Why Valerie, for our date, of course.”

He reached into the trunk, grabbed my arm, and pressed his thumb on the wound.

A flaring burst of pain shot through my entire body.

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